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HPE Opens High-Performance Flash Storage for Midsize Businesses

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company was busy this week releasing a flotilla of new infrastructure items aimed at cost-conscious small and midrange customers.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, despite being one of the solid senior citizens of the IT business, has been having a tough time the last few years finding its footing as the market moves from hardware- to cloudware-based.

Many midrange-size businesses are in the same boat. As the role of IT vendors evolves from supplying backend hardware and software to helping companies use the cloud and mobile apps to procure sales, midsize businesses often find themselves behind the curve due to budget constraints, manpower issues and other pressures.

HPE undoubtedly sees an opening here. The midrange business market is by far the largest in the business, but it’s also the most difficult one to access, because the potential customers are so spread out all over the physical and virtual map. If HPE, well known in all corners of the tech business, can reestablish itself as the savior of small-to-midsize companies to go along with its deep-rooted core of Fortune 1000 customers, then it could improve its fortunes big time.

A lot of people don’t know that HPE is also in the WiFi business. The company introduced a new WiFi package specifically designed for businesses with fewer than 100 employees. HPE claims the OfficeConnect OC20 provides secure, reliable and cost-effective business-grade Wi-Fi for businesses without dedicated IT resources.

Here are key details on the new products:

HPE SimpliVity 380: This is hyperconverged infrastructure. The entry-level SimpliVity 380 offers the benefits of all-flash storage—twice the performance of hybrid solutions—with half the latency. SimpliVity 380 HCI targets midsize businesses who want the agility and economics of the cloud with the performance and protection of an on-premises solution. Built-in capabilities—including data protection, disaster recovery, deduplication and compression—address key requirements and provide additional opportunities for consolidation and savings.

HPE Nimble Storage Flash Arrays: The HPE Nimble Storage Predictive Flash platform includes predictive analytics that are capable of addressing over 85 percent of storage issues before they occur. This package offers high availability with options to scale to petabytes as a customer’s business grows. HPE announced the acquisition of Nimble Storage earlier this year, and as of Nov. 1, the full Nimble Storage portfolio of adaptive and all-flash offerings will be available exclusively from HPE channel partners worldwide.

MSA1050 Hybrid Storage Array: SMB customers must often choose between price and performance, but now these businesses are able to obtain enterprise-grade storage at an affordable cost. Pricing for the new MSA1050 hybrid storage array starts at under $5,500, representing the lowest entry price point in the HPE shared storage portfolio. HPE is enabling direct SAS connectivity for ProLiant Gen10 servers to MSA1050/2050 storage, providing access to flash storage without any network infrastructure required.

StoreFabric M-series Ethernet switches: For many SMB customers, the thought of deploying dedicated fibre channel network infrastructure for their flash systems is cost prohibitive and adds complexity. The HPE StoreFabric M-series switches enable SMBs to achieve an affordable, high-performance network infrastructure built for flash. The new family of HPE StoreFabric M-Series Ethernet switches provide flash-optimized networking over standard iSCSI connections.

HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10, ProLiant ML350 Gen10 and ProLiant DL580 Gen10 Servers: Security is a top priority for all customers, and HPE is helping SMBs prevent attacks that disrupt their business. The security features on the ProLiant ML110 Gen10, ProLiant ML350 Gen10 and ProLiant DL580 Gen10 provide protection against firmware attacks. The ML350 Gen10 Server is ProLiant’s most powerful and versatile 2P tower, delivering a 71 percent performance boost and a 27 percent increase in cores over the previous generation.

HPE OfficeConnect OC20: Small businesses are going mobile. While Aruba is the mid-tier-to-large enterprise networking product, HPE is extending its networking capabilities to small business with HPE OfficeConnect OC20. The HPE OfficeConnect OC20 is a cost-effective Wi-Fi solution designed for businesses without dedicated IT resources, and it provides secure and reliable business-grade Wi-Fi that is easy to set up with an intuitive mobile app. The HPE OfficeConnect OC20 Access Point is available to order now at a retail price of $250.

Pricing and Availability

HPE SimpliVity 380 hyperconverged infrastructure is currently available to order; check with HPE for pricing. HPE Nimble Storage arrays are currently available with U.S. pricing starting at $20,000. HPE MSA1050 is currently available with U.S. pricing starting at $5,500; HPE StoreFabric M-series switch is currently available, with pricing starting at $7,990; HPE ML110 is currently available with pricing starting at $1,299; HPE ML350 is currently available with pricing starting at $1,899; HPE DL580 is currently available with pricing starting at $15,449; HPE OfficeConnect OC20 is currently available with US street pricing starting at $250.